Northwest Fishing Reports

I have a Lowrance LCX-104c .I have been fishing in deep water up to 160ft.I never mark any fish. When i'm catching fish still a blank screen. I tryed all the setting a number of times. Anyone here can give any thought on what to do. Here are some things I checked. zoom,sensitivity, any help would be great. When i'm fishing deep water shows everything but fish.

Have you tried the unit in shallow water? Is it finding bottom? Is the transducer set properly? Is the transducer inside the hull or outside the hull?

Thanks, Works fine in shallow water along shore line. Shows fish around the rocks and the fish alarm is going off. The transducer is outside the hull.

Clean the transducer first, then read here;

section 5 sonar troubleshooting

http://www.lowrance.com/upload/Lowrance ... 122002.pdf


http://www.lowrance.com/Products/Marine ... fications/

[quote="Amx"]Clean the transducer first, then read here] Thanks Tom, I tryed everything. Going to call there one 800 number in the morning.

I called Lowrance they said my transducer is going out. I got a new one and will test it out fishing this coming saturday. I will gave a update then. Thanks everyone.

One thing you can do is take the auto sensitivity setting off, put it on manual and crank it up to about 97%. It will be a dirty looking screen but that's returns from everything in the water, fish included. Don't use fish icons either. Use fish arches.

Boba, I agree with Zen. every time you run something through the the possessor in the unit to determine whats fish and whats not i.e auto mode and surface clutter and so on you use valuable energy of the unit. turn all that crap off and run the unit and start with the unit sensitivity up and slowly bring it down till the unit clears up. you should be able to see your bait when jigged off the bottom. hope this helps.

bassboattech wrote:You should be able to see your bait when jigged off the bottom. hope this helps.

Excellent way to get a feel for what your sounder can do. If I mooch herring, I can keep an eye on where my bait is on the sounder. The only thing you need to keep in mind is cone angle. How much of an area you cover depends on the cone angle of your transducer and how deep you are. If your lure is too far away from the boat, it won't show up on the screen. If you can see you lure 100+ feet down, the unit is working fine.

bassboattech wrote:Turn all that crap off and run the unit and start with the unit sensitivity up and slowly bring it down till the unit clears up.

This is the first thing anyone should do with their sonar. If you have fish symbols set to display on your sonar, your missing 90% of the information it is providing you. With your sonar in the "raw data" mode, you will see fish arches, bottom structure, bottom composition, thermoclines, bait balls, etc. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you figure it out you won't ever go back to using the symbols. When in doubt, take a pic and post it, I'm sure there are plenty of us who would be happy to help interpret what is on the display.

Thanks everyone. Will try the finder saturday am. Hope it works.

Hi All, I tryed everything on the finder. Only marked one fish I think. I talked to a guy that had a nice fishing boat. He said he seldom marks fish at Priest lake. He had five fish and we ended up with five macks. So I'm thinking my finder works fine. Thanks everyone. The only thing that showed on my finder. Fish or ?

Whoa! In looking at your photo, your voltage is way low. It should be up to around 12.5-13.0 volts.

Here is a photo of my screen running off a Cabela's compact 12v 8Ah rechargable battery. When my battery gets down to about 11 volts it shuts off.

A new battery is on my list. It sure runs down using my downriggers.
Thanks everyone

looks like you need more juice for the fishfinder. I had a problem with mine a few years ago and it had a hard time reading bottom in over 100' of water. Wasn't getting enough juice and the problem cleared up when I figured out where my ground problem was in the boat.

Good catch guys, low voltage is something to be on the lookout for, especially with a large and powerfull unit like the model you are using. Were you running your downriggers when that pic was taken? Something to keep in mind is that you should be seeing your downriggers as a solid line at what ever depth they are set, unless of course your running them shallow. Drop them down to 60', crank up the sensitivity to around 95% or more and turn off the surface clarity and noise reduction. The 200kh frequency will give you a pretty clear image without all the additional filtering the unit can provide. Keep the sensitivity up high, especially when you are in deep water, and apply the surface clarity filter if needed. One other thing you should see is the thermocline. With the surface temps at 60 degrees it is a sure bet that the rest of the water isn't the same temp all the way down.

The blip on your screen doesn't strike me as a fish, unless it was on the move. A suspended, slow or non-moving fish, will have the standard arch apperance. A fast moving fish will show as a straight line in the direction the fish is moving. If you fish with your gear somewhat close to the ball, like we do when fishing for salmon, you can sometimes see a streak to your gear. That would be a fish rushing over to check out your lure, when it results in a hook-up, consider yourself blessed to have seen it happen.


When I have my Lowrance (LMS 527C dfi) set to use the 200kh frequency, I'm usually at 98% sensitivity, surface clarity setting is at low and the noise reduction is turned off. I also have the sonar ping speed set near max, this will give you the best possible image.

When I start the 150 hp yamaha the voltage go's up to 13 volts plus. Running downriggers run my battery down to 11 plus. I see my downriggers go down to about 50 ft. The wife is picking up a battery today at cabela's. Will be out fishing again next weekend. Thanks everyone.

Got the new battery from Cabela's. AGM... Cranking amps 1525. Cold cranking amps 1205.
Reserve capacity 205 minutues. Price $233

Another case of boat owner's sticker shock!#-o

You got that right.lol